Captain Do-Good Gets Confused

My brain today is much like an F-22 Raptor; older, no longer in production, and spare parts not available.

Before we examine today’s story, let me assure y’all that sweet Irene is getting better. Her knee replacement surgery nearly four weeks ago seems to have been good and her pain is greatly reduced. Likewise her emergency dental surgery a couple of days ago was successful, one tooth removed, an abscess drained and a temporary bridge was created and installed.

BTW, given that she had her knee replacement on our anniversary and her emergency dental surgery on her birthday, it certainly makes remembering the timeline of each event more simple. You know how seniors are; the conversations always go medical, and remembering when medical events arose can be an issue for me. Heck, remembering anything can be difficult, as the following illustrates:

I was chatting with across-the-street neighbors earlier this week while they loaded their trailer. They’re meeting up with all their kids in another state, as usual, celebrating Turkey Day and five birthdays. I volunteered to take their trash out on the proper day and return their can. Just a little favor, people do it all the time for each other, no big deal.

I know some view me as shoot-from-the-hip but I can be more of a process guy, and I am about trash. The day before trash pickup, I always keep an eye on the clock. I like to put trash out at the proper time.  I think it looks anal and eager to be too early, like being exactly on time for a party when we were teens. And we could still have last minute stuff to dump later. Plus, if we had visits from racoons or even feral cats, when someone puts trash out really early and it’s also really smelly,  like the wrappers for fish or the remains of a Costco chicken you get a nighttime visit for sure. And IMHO almost nothing equals cleaning up after a few hungry racoons to inspire a person give up being an animal activist. Yeah, it’s true, we don’t have many racoons or cats but we could, right? Anything is possible around here.

And I certainly don’t want to be putting someone else’s trash out too late, say in the dark, for reasons like not knowing their terrain and knowing my age and state of my hips and knees. This sorta narrows my perfect time to late afternoon.

So 4 PM came and before dealing with my own trash I looked across the street and saw, unexpectedly, that somebody else had already moved the neighbors’ can to the curb. A tiny bit surprised, I walked over; maybe it wasn’t their can? Or maybe they’d have another can that also needed going out? I certainly would not want to be seen as not having met my responsibilities. And anyway I LIKE being counted on. Even this little commitment meant something to me. I felt a twinge of disappointment.

And, yes, they DID in fact have another can, back in their patio. But it was empty.

Now bewildered a bit, I went back across the street to our place to think. Could I have misunderstood, I wondered? No, I thought, they clearly said they had nobody else signed up for the project. Well then, some other good Samaritan had just decided to pitch in and help out? Yeah, I thought. That’s the ticket! So I would just wait until after pickup the next morning and at least put the can back.

However, the next AM, after the trash-collectors had come and gone, when Buster the Terror-ier and I went out for our morning constitutional, I noticed that the neighbors’ can was already gone. How, I asked Buster, could this have happened? He was more interested in pissing on the base of the corner “Welcome to The Neighborhood” sign and wouldn’t answer.  So, after the walk, I dropped him off and walked across the street again.  And, yes, my friends were back to having two cans in their back patio, both completely empty (I checked, twice!).

So apparently, somewhere in our neighborhood, there is an anonymous do-gooder who, also knowing that my friends sometimes went places and forgot to take out their trash, saw their trailer leave, made assumptions, took their can out and brought it back in without mentioning it to anybody. And did it super-early. That kind of thing could happen, around here. Pretty friendly neighborhood, all in all. We sorta keep an eye on each other, much as we can.

If that was the answer, it would mean I had not necessarily lost any of my few remaining brain cells; that I hadn’t forgotten something else that I should be remembering. No problem. “Once again all would be right with the world.

So now I went back across the street towards home for the last time in this episode. And I noticed that, in all the scurrying, I had forgotten to take our trash out to begin with. No empty trash container on the curb.

But no, I wouldn’t do that, would I? Maybe our anonymous do-gooder had replaced our trash can, too? Last hope. But I checked our can, back inside the yard, to make sure. And, yep, there was the old Costco roast chicken container, stinking up a storm. And, yep, there was that sure-fire racoon attractor, the fish wrappers from the other night’s halibut. And several of Buster’s poop bags, tied off with my characteristic knot.

A little funny, but also worrisome. Worrying is my go-to position anyway, and at my age I worry about lots of diseases and afflictions. Why, just in the last week alone I’ve worried about infections in joint replacements, abscesses above front teeth, cancers in general, brain tumors in particular, Parkinsons’ and MS, exposure to Covid,  getting my flu booster, and the normal head cold, which several friends got somehow, even with masks and safe distancing and all.  And certainly anybody reading this can tell I worry about dementia and whether or not my increasing forgetfulness means anything there.

That one I need to look into, probably.  I already know there are some things I can do about my increasing forgetfulness. I can check in with my primary doctor about the possibility of meds to fight dementia. My poor sister was afflicted with it, and it has somewhat of a genetic disposition as I remember.

I could also work to reduce my internal stress levels. You’re confused…what would I have to be stressed about, you ask? After all we’ve been retired for years, living on pensions and Social Security and some small-ish savings. Not much change anticipated there. ‘Course, logically, with inflation appearing for the first time in a decade, that certainly could be what I have to be stressed about.

But there is also holiday management. Turkey Day kicks off the run to New Year’s. Only five weeks and all that stuff to do. And all that food to eat,  including lots of  processed sugar (and increased caffeine) both being associated with incipient dementia. (Along with less exercise, also driven by the holidays and the short daylight.) All that, but some things I can dispense with. We don’t send gifts as much – we rely more and more on gift cards and the like. And we send half the number of physical cards we used to. And we aren’t going anywhere over the holidays. And thanks to some recent dental bills, mentioned above we won’t even have to buy each other gifts this year, LOL! So, no worries.

And then there is meditation. Good for all stress. I suck at meditation but I’m gonna keep plugging. Remember, grasshoppah, it’s the JOURNEY not the DESTINATION, right? It is what it is. So, sure, I’ll keep on keeping on.

And we just borrowed a very nice recumbent bike from our friends down the street. And Irene and I can both use it. And we may. That’s the thing about recumbent bikes, you know. They can sit still and unused for years at a time. But we’ll keep it top of mind.

Or maybe I will write five or six posts, and just get a bit ahead so I can kick back with no worries. Good stress-reducer, but it probably won’t work. Even simple posts like this one take a couple of hours or more to think about, compose, edit, compose some more, add media and post. They can get much, much more time consuming if I have to do a lot of research as well. I also tend to get distracted doing research these days, and find myself watching pop-up demos of ultimate portable shredders and large-snake captures and cute-cat videos on YouTube.

There’s much more, but you get the gist. And I’m just wondering…you don’t ever go through anything like this, do you? Well, please chime in if you have something to add.

Please take good care of yourself.  Don’t eat more over the holidays than you can diet and exercise off in a reasonable time period after. Don’t move garbage cans around during the dark. I’m thinking that, right now, maybe we restrict ourselves to the couch and TV? I understand they’ll be showing The Christmas Story soon. That should be enough excitement for you, or at least it is for me.